The mature elegant stinkhorn is a tapered orange or pink column. The immature stages look like small white eggs. Cutting them in half is important for identification: Halved stinkhorn eggs look very different from immature capped mushrooms, in which you can see the developing mushroom cap. Stinkhorns can go from an unopened egg to fully mature in just a few hours.

Considered an excellent edible mushroom, when young and fresh—with caution. Cut open each puffball from top to bottom to make sure of your identification. Gem-studded puffballs are very common and tasty mushrooms.

The gem-studded puffball is a white, rounded to turban-shaped ball, densely covered with spiny warts, developing a pore at the top. It grows on the ground in open woods, along roads, in waste areas. When gem-studded puffballs are mature, a pore opening at the top releases spores that look like thick, olive brown dust.

Regs and Areas

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